


Fetish

by verus_janus (Methleigh)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-21
Updated: 2012-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-05 19:17:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Methleigh/pseuds/verus_janus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus likes the cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fetish

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for nudity.

Severus likes the cold. Some of the others had curled around themselves protectively when they had first come to sleep in the Slytherin dungeons. They requested larger fires, more blankets. The first winter, when he had been eleven, some had slept in caps and mittens, extra socks. Sometimes he thought they had all been placed here simply for the environment - to drive them from their wombs of the rich warm houses in which they had been bred and raised, and which they still expected, even demanded.

But he was happy there, sleeping in an old shirt of his father's, the collar cuffs and elbows frayed to threads. It draped around his thin little form to his knees. The chill made him feel his body - notice his arms and legs in the air, against his clothes, touched by his cool sheets. He was aware of thin skin over bones, his elbows against his ribs, but separate from them. He had not been given slippers and the soles of his bare feet burned as they encountered the freezing flagstones in the morning. It interested him.

The cold interested him in himself as well. He taught himself small disciplines. Though he never hopped or limped quickly when his feet touched the floor, he now trained himself to maintain an even expression, to move fluidly if deliberately - not to react to the sensation. He did the same in the shower or in the bath, suppressing a gasp as the cold water hit him, deliberately keeping his limbs loose despite his instinct to tuck them close to his body. He washed in cold water by choice.

Apart from the small lessons he gave himself, he liked the way the water let him feel the distinct parts of himself. He felt the pain through his skin as he entered, and he marvelled at the resemblance in feeling between heat and cold. His cock shrank and his balls drew themselves back without his volition, and he reached down to feel himself there, curious.

He held his hands up to look at them, watch them become lace of blue in his sallow skin as it became transparent and his veins rose to the surface. Thin blue lines gradually appeared - larger vessels first, then a network of smaller ones. He could almost look down inside his own palm, enjoys the observation of depth. When he looked at it with his eyes unfocused he could watch his skin turn greenish. The veins on his feet stood out and he could see their network there, in his arms, legs, chest.

His skin smoothed and tightened. He washed, didn't smell. But the potions over which he hovered soaked his hair - ran it with sweat mingled with steam laden with materials of all types. The result had been a greasy sheen, strands that straggled across his eyes, over his face. It hid his expression when he bent his head - sly smiles, exultation that might be ridiculed, anger, despair. The cold baths cleansed it of dirt but never completely removed the oils with which it had been permeated. And Severus had other ambitions, other interests more pressing, more interesting.

He wore his scarf, pleased he had that at least, like the others - thick, Slytherin and new. He wore it in winter, his thicker school robes, heavy, black wool, just like those of everyone else. He had worn his uniform, grey pants, striped tie, white shirt. They had been the best clothes he had ever had. Outside, in the halls, and in the classes, he had been warm. He had ensured the fire in the common room was always lit and he had not avoided it.

But alone, when he is himself - free and unobserved - he indulges in cold. It is like a new toy, full of variation, projects, new discoveries. Severus likes the cold.


End file.
